Chocolate hacksaws

Needed to hacksaw an inch off a TV mounting bracket, and realised I'd left my hacksaw at my brother's place. Then recalled that I'd added a hacksaw onto a CPC order to bump it up to minimum free P&P. Went to dig it out, and found I'd done this twice, so I've got a brand new 12" hacksaw and a brand new junior hacksaw.

Started with the 12" hacksaw, being a substantial piece of tubular steel I'm sawing through. Ping! -- second stroke and the new blade pings in half -- sod it, no spares. Oh well, unwrap the junior hacksaw, and at least that comes with a bundle of spare blades. Check blade is in right way, etc, and start sawing. Nothing happens. Have another look at the blade, and now the two edges are indistinguishable -- absolutely no sign of any teeth left whatsoever. At least the bundle of spare blades are a different colour, so they might do better. Try to fit one into the junior hacksaw -- won't go because the slots for the pins on the blade ends are much too small. Now if only I had a hacksaw, I could widen them...

Of course, it's 11pm, so nowhere is going to be open. Next morning, walk around to local hardware store and pick up a few 12" blades, and the first one goes right through the steel tube like a knife through butter.

Yes, I know, "should have used an angle grinder"!

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel
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Quite common with an all hard blade in unskilled hands. They allow better precision in the right hands but I always break them too. It really does only take a slight twist to break them. I assume you bought some flexible blades so they don't break.

Reply to
dennis

It's a bit of a fine line between blades which are hard enough for a long life and don't break too easily. There are probably expensive ones with different steel etc for the teeth and blade.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

No longer necessary to compromise:

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Reply to
RubberBiker

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they've been bi-metal for some time now. Trouble is, the all-hard ones were good for 'special' knives - I've several of different shapes, but the bi-metal ones don't hold an edge so well.

I bought some cheap blades, then found that I had a piece of steel tube that had been specially made for smoothing the blades.

Reply to
PeterC

That "fine line" is an e-beam weld. There's no point in using any hacksaw blade these days exccept bimetal ones, and all-hard for some accurate bench work (You still need three+ blades to spread the tooth sizes, and you might as well do that in three dedicated frames).

Except that they're cheap, and about 30 years old. I used to take my own one in to school metalwork lessons, which was O levels back then, so it was a fair while ago.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

These are handy tools

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Reply to
Stuart Noble

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sort-of-supported pad saw, but not sure about the blade in as shown. Could help with some jobs. I might make something similar to try it out. If I do need to push a blade with a pad saw, I try to use part of a broken one, where the end teeth are still unworn, on the grounds that I'll prolly break it.

Reply to
PeterC

My Pound Shop hacksaw has teeth with a very strange shape - difficult to tell which way they are pointing - and the pins are tool big for the slots.

Reply to
John

Dave Plowman (News) explained :

There are, but they tend to start to split at the teeth.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Yes, had a junior plus blade exactly like this in a recent "toolbox plus tools" offer; I forget where from, maybe screwfix?. Curiously, the other tools in the kit are more than adequate.

Reply to
newshound

tut. I thought you'd found somewhere selling chocolate hacksaws. ;-/

Reply to
mogga

Ye can get pink hacksaws, so chocolate can't be far

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here we go ...

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Reply to
Adrian C

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Reply to
geoff

Interesting you calling them chocolate, I always reckoned those useless screwdriver sets you used to get in fancy-goods shops were made of creme cheese.

Reply to
Graham.

Naw, they are made from toffee.

The orginal post content refers to these hacksaws as "chocolate teapots", look good but no use what so ever for the intended purpose.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

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